Imagine you are one of the many Americans who may qualify to enroll in a health insurance plan through the Affordable Care Act later this year.
Deep in the holiday season, the thought of enrolling for next year escapes you because, after all, the advertisements frequently gracing your cable news station around this time of year have disappeared.
By late December, it dawns on you that there are only a few weeks left to enroll. But President Trump and his GOP colleagues in the White House, in their quest to decrease health care access to those in need and erase any project holding former President Obama’s name, slam that window shut weeks before the long-time enrollment deadline.
You were never informed of this change, and now it’s too late.
This devastating scenario is especially plausible for the growing population of younger, healthier people eligible to enroll in an ACA plan.
The Trump administration will cut the ACA advertising budget by 90 percent according to Vox. This will reduce last year’s $100 million budget to $10 million. Additionally, the White House plans to cut funding for in-person enrollment programs facilitated by “navigators,” or enrollers, by 41 percent. Aggregated, this results in a 72 percent cut to enroll eligible citizens into the health care law’s programs.
While Congress remains unable to repeal and replace Obamacare in spite of a GOP congressional majority, the executive branch is relying on sneaky tactics to reduce accessibility to average Americans.
In last week’s health care column, I outlined how Trump can still stifle Obamacare access by manipulating the 2017-18 enrollment period, despite the failure to repeal and replace Obamacare in the Senate in July.
So far, he’s already cut the enrollment window in half from 90 days to 45, leaving people able to register only from Nov. 1 to Dec. 15. Last year, the enrollment period ended Jan. 31.
Slashing the advertising budget for the ACA is simply another tactic the Trump administration is employing to leave Americans who need insurance in the dark.
It’s no surprise that the Trump administration has employed this tactic, given the president spent a portion of the taxpayer-funded Obamacare budget to rally against the program in July, according to the Daily Beast. These efforts included a complex social media campaign as well as destructive video testimonials against the health care initiative.
Former Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said in an interview with the Daily Beast that she was “horrified by leaders at the Department of Health and Human Services who seem intent on taking health care away from the constituents they are supposed to serve.”
No matter your politics, the adamant attacks against the ACA are peculiarly vicious. In a cocktail of hatred for his predecessor and disgust for Americans experiencing sickness, Trump is trying to dismantle the country’s first attempt at government-subsidized health care.
By gutting the Obamacare advertising budget, Trump is blindfolding the American people. It is the federal government’s job, no matter who holds office, to inform the public of its government-subsidized health coverage initiative.
Doing so not only gets the word out to Americans across the country, but also makes it easier for government officials at the state and municipal levels to enroll eligible citizens in the aforementioned in-person programs.
Trump is erasing necessary transparency between the government and the constituency. Every American deserves quality health insurance, and it’s imperative that constituents know when and how to enroll in an Obamacare plan.
jsbourkl@indiana.edu
@jsbourkland
